February 21

Events

• Current events

• 1907 - "Some say love's a little boy" - The great poet W. H. Auden was born on this date. When he was in his 30s, Auden met Chester Kallman, a teenager at the time. Their relationship lasted for a third of a century. Knowledgeable readers and associates knew about Auden's sexual interests , despite the fact that he never published any of his blatantly homoerotic work under his own name. But with lines like "His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy. / Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked," there can be little doubt of his desires.

• 1985 - "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." - Joseph Francis Henry molested 22 girls aged 9 to 11. In 1971 Henry was caught molesting nudist girls at the New Jersey nudist camp he managed, but charges were not filed against him by the club or by the girls' parents. This left Henry free to move to California where he became involved in a child prostitution and pornography ring. In 1978 he was arrested and pleaded guilty to four counts of committing lewd acts upon children. On this date he testified before the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Governmental Affairs. In his testimony he blamed his criminal past on being molested himself by a man when he was 12, a circumstance he called "typical" of child molesters. he said, "I used all the normal techniques used by pedophiles. I bribed my victims; I pleaded with them, but I also showed them affection and attention they thought they were not getting anywhere else. Almost without exception, every child I molested was lonely and longing for attention. For example, I would take my victims to movies and to amusement parks. When I babysat them, I would let them stay up past their bedtime if they let me fondle them. One little 8-year-old girl I was babysitting came over to my house one day soaking wet from a rainstorm. I told her I'd pay her $1 if she would stay undressed for an hour. This incident opened the door for 3 years of molestation. I used these kinds of tricks on children all the time. Their desire to be loved, their trust of adults, their normal sexual playfulness and their inquisitive minds made them perfect victims." In the rest of his testimony he continued to regurgitate all of the cliches about abusers. Henry had previously taken part in a treatment program at Patton State Hospital. I guess it worked.

• 2002 - "We have to have sex with boys ... or else the terrorists will win." - The New York Times published an article called "Warlords and Pedophilia" on this date. They explained that back in the 19th century, ethnic Pashtuns fighting in Britain's colonial army sang odes talking of their longing for young boys. The Taliban, a regime not known for being open-minded, tried hard to erase pedo relationships from Pashtun culture. With their removal, however, and with the demise of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is, some people began to return to the practice again. "During the Taliban, being with a friend was difficult, but now it is easy again," said 19 year old Ahmed Fareed. A shopkeeper took him as a lover when he was just 12, he said. Muhammad Daud, ten years older than Fareed, said he first spotted Fareed at an auto repair shop owned by Fareed's father and pursued the boy for months. "If you want a haliq [a boy for sex] you have to follow the boy for a long time before he will agree," said Daud. "At first he was afraid, so I bought him some chocolate and gave him a lot of money," said Daud, laughing. "I went step by step and after about six or seven months, he agreed." "At that time, I had no beard," Fareed said, smiling. Fareed insisted that he did not regret having a sexual relationship with his older friend. An interest in relationships with young boys among warlords and their militia commanders played a part in the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan. In 1994, the Taliban, then a small army of idealistic students of the Koran, were called to rescue a boy over whom two commanders had fought. They freed the boy and the people responded with gratitude and support.

• 2002 - The victim, again, of ambitious politicians. - Jane Swift, the Governor of Massachusetts, made a decision that brought her near universal criticism on this date. Gerald Amirault was convicted in 1986 of molesting and raping nine children at the family run Fells Acres day care center in Malden. His sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, and his late mother, Violet Amirault, were convicted in a separate trial. But all three were innocent, victims of an ambitious prosecutor who used the name recognition he gained to run successfully for attorney general and unsuccessfully for governor. Faced with the clear evidence of the hysteria and ambition induced verdict, the parole board recommended unanimously to commute the remainder of the sentence (it was outside the board's jurisdiction to actually re-open the case). But Swift decided to deny that recommendation, preferring to keep Amirault in prison. Swift denied the widely-believed idea that her motivation in the decision was political, as she was up for election that year. Swift, as a result of this controversy and others, decided not to run for election in 2002. Amirault is eligible for parole in March 2004, when he will have served 17½ years.